Lessons Learnt: The Story of Young Mai

By Alfreda Williams

Lessons Learnt: The Story of Young Mai is a story about a young girl's life experiences and lessons learned from them. The introduction describes her battle in writing her book: the years of procrastination and anxiety and finally her aspiration and inspiration to complete her book. Starting with the early childhood years, the story progresses throughout her high school years and details her relationships with family and friends, her struggles and triumphs, and lessons learned from each experience. Family and extended family relationships are described in detail. She details her life in the church and her confusion about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. She reveals her disdain of the poor only to realize, to her chagrin, that she, too, was poor. Mai informs us of the painful way that she learned the difference between popularity and prestige while in high school. And she discloses the details of the heartfelt pain and shame of her prom. Lessons Learnt is an extremely honest book, sometimes painful, other times hilariously funny, which closely examines how Mai was affected by her childhood. She describes the challenges of growing up, how segregation affected her, and those teenage years fraught with curiosity, disappointments, and successes-all of which shaped her life's trajectory. The book includes her adult reflections of her childhood. It ends with a synopsis of the lessons she learned from those experiences. No matter if you get your ass beat, don't let nobody walk all over you.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644684986

Book preview

The Early Years

Playing in the red dirt in Natchez

Staying with my godparents

Going to church on Sundays

Traveling to Up North to Chicago with my sisters

Living with my mother, sisters, my aunt and her husband upon arriving to Chicago

Living in rat-infested tenements

Going to church several times a week and playing with my friends there

Wishing that the church’s pastor was my father

Living in our first decent apartment; playing in the front yard with Berniece

Meeting my future stepfather

Moving back Down South to Natchez to live with my grandparents

Visiting my godparents

Playing with my cousins Down South

Attending elementary school Down South

Returning to Chicago with my grandmother after one year Down South

Learning that my mother was living with my future stepfather and that I had a new brother

My disappointment in not being able to return to Natchez with my grandmother

My mother’s marriage to my stepfather

Refusing to repeat fifth grade because I had attended school Down South

Playing with my school and neighborhood friends

Garfield Center Field House

Being molested by my stepfather

Visiting with my cousins in Wisconsin

Graduating from eighth grade

I tried too hard. I had always tried too hard. During my childhood, I was the Class Buffoon. The Clown. The Tomboy. Trying to please others. Trying so hard to get others to like me. Covering up my self-perceived faults and defects by my over-the-years carefully developed system of histrionics.

I intensely detested being born a girl. I never wanted to be a girl. My greatest sorrow during childhood was that I was born a girl. Not that I was a lesbian, had lesbian tendencies, or thoughts or anything like that. But I felt that being born a girl was so unfair. Back then, when I was growing up, things were so much different for girls. No equality of the sexes. Boys got to do everything! Climb trees and fences, fight, make war, and sleep with everybody (in a very literal sense) and yet maintain a respected, if not admirable reputation, especially the more bodies they slept with.

But girls! That was another story. Girls couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that. Girls couldn’t be just girls. No, we had to be the future mothers of tomorrow. We couldn’t play on the school’s baseball team, basketball team, football team, or in any game considered to be a boys game. Girls couldn’t pick up heavy packages, climb trees or fences, or do anything that might jeopardize our precious future ability to bear children. So I had to learn how to prepare for motherhood while the boys learned how to play and make war with one another. I had to learn how to clean house, cook, sew, do the laundry, and take care of my younger siblings. From my perspective, life was just downright unfair because I wanted to be one of the boys. And it just could not be so. I had a problem with this sexual inequality stuff. It was painful. Not being able to do what you wanted to do because of societal norms. I was like a pimple waiting to burst, which accounts for many of the problems I had when I was growing up. Lesson learnt—no matter how much you want it to be so, sometimes life just isn’t fair.

***

Born in Natchez, I can’t remember too much about my early childhood years, when I was a very little girl in the South. I can’t remember too much of my life before my fifth birthday. I do remember being in the South, playing in the fields and eating the red Mississippi clay dirt that seemed to ooze like goo through my fingers and on my tongue. It was so delicious. So mouthwatering and soothing to my mouth, dissolving down my throat like soft custard. I can barely remember my mother Cora, my two sisters, my grandparents, and other relatives. But I fondly remember my godparents. I scarcely remember one other sister, Delores, who, at the age of four years old, was killed by a motorcycle. I can’t remember my father. Years later, I learned that I couldn’t remember him because he wasn’t there. Forty-nine years later, in a conversation with Mama and sister Edna, I learned that I couldn’t remember Delores because Edna reminded Mama that Delores died before I was born. But for forty-some years, Mama planted the memory of Delores in my mind (you remember playing with her, don’t you? Remember when…?), so much so that I actually believed that I remembered playing with her. Lesson learnt—trust your own memories.

***

I did have some vague, early childhood memories of my grandparents. I tried to avoid Grandpa Malone because he seemed so formidable and mean. So tall, so black, with a perpetual scowl on his face. Grandma Hattie had a sweet spirit which I, even in my youthful innocence, sensed.

On the other hand, I had glowing memories of my godparents Miss Mary and Mr. Wilmer. I would often spend weekends and even weeks-on-end with them. They were kind, loving, and protective. With them, I was truly pampered. They had an oversized backyard with brilliant, multicolored flowers and lots of flourishing vegetables—tomatoes, collard greens, beans, cabbage, and green peppers. They also had a few chickens, a scrawny rooster, a couple of fat pigs, and two playful dogs. Although initially timid when I first encountered the dogs, in time I became enamored with them. We would romp around that big backyard together all day long. I could play in the backyard’s sandy dirt for hours on end without being scolded. Clean or dirty, my godparents equally loved me. And I loved them so much, so very, very much, much more than my mother and grandparents. I had a special god-brother, Richard, who treated me just like his own little sister. No distinction. Just love everywhere.

Being at my godparents’ house was like being in another world, even though it was within a five-block walking distance of my mother’s house. And my godparents had an indoor toilet! At Mama’s house, we had an outdoor toilet, called an outhouse, which the older children and adults used. An outhouse was a shed with a seat perched upon a deep hole that was dug into to the ground for purposes of urinating and defecating. It reeked to high heaven because there was no mechanism to flush the waste. Instead, when the hole in the outhouse was filled with waste, it was covered up with dirt and a new outhouse was built. The smaller kids used a tin bucket to eliminate their bodily fluids and waste. Every morning, Mama would empty the tin waste bucket into that foul, smelly outhouse. At my godparents’ house, I only had to hoist my tiny body onto the toilet stool, eliminate my waste, and flush the toilet. No foulness there.

My godparents’ living room was truly a thing of beauty to behold. So warm, so friendly, so make-yourself-at-home-ish. It was decorated with diverse dolls of many colors and nationalities, some made of porcelain, some of china and some of cloth.

Oversized china lamps were arranged on the coffee and end tables which were covered with dainty, spotless white doilies crocheted by my godmother. The shadow box was filled with multiple figurines, some religious, mostly antiques. There was a gigantic piano in the middle of the living room that Miss Mary would often play for me, teaching me many Christian songs like Yes, Jesus Loves Me, This Little Light of Mine and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

Best of all, I had my own bed and my own bedroom. I didn’t have to share my privacy with anyone, unlike at my mother’s house where I had to share the bedroom with my two sisters. At my godparents’ house, bedtime was a joy rather than a punishment. My bed was a big poster bed with huge, rounded posts on all four corners. It was a high bed; I had to use a step stool to put my teeny weenie body in it. It was always covered with a pretty quilt, handmade by Miss Mary, and sundry fluffy pillows. I would hoist my tiny body onto that big bed and dream sweet, wonderful dreams. Dreams of ever-loving love for my godparents. Always happy dreams. Life-will-always-be-so-wonderful dreams.

Godfather Wilmer was a deliveryman for one of the local milk and juice companies. He was a tall, extremely handsome, jolly, copper-toned man with a deep voice who would often set me on his lap and tell fairy tales, teach me Bible lessons, and sing songs to me. He would always bring home fresh-squeezed orange juice in pretty quart-sized glass bottles, which was a delicacy for me because my family never had fresh-squeezed orange juice. I can still taste and smell the orange juice to this very day. So cold, so tingly, so good, so fresh, so sweet.

Godmother Mary did not work, and so she was free to lovingly attend to my every whim all day long. I did not have to share her with anyone, unlike my mother who had to split her free time with my two other sisters. Richard, Miss Mary’s son, was much older than I and did not require much of Miss Mary’s attention. Miss Mary was a short woman, with long, pretty straight hair, somewhat bright-skinned, with a shrill voice. She liked to laugh and have a good time. She thoroughly enjoyed my company. Even later in my adult life, I can still hear Miss Mary’s shrill voice, calling out to me like it was yesterday. Maaiii, Maaiii! Chile, come in here and eat your lunch!

And Miss Mary could cook! They had food that my mother never had. Most mornings they would have bacon or sausage for breakfast, something that we never had at my mother’s house. All my mother could afford was salt pork. Miss Mary would cook expensive cuts of meat and fancy vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, not the collard greens and cabbage that I often ate at home. And she always served me my favorite foods like fried chicken, smothered pork chops, oven-baked pork brisket, baked lamb chops and baked ham. Dinner was always followed with a dessert like luscious pound cake, delightful lemon pie, and tantalizing strawberry shortcake. Every dinner was like eating at the king’s table. Godfather Wilmer would always say grace before we ate, and during dinner they would talk about their day. Godfather Wilmer would talk about his deliveries and people on his route that were sick or on vacation. Godmother Mary would talk about the church people and things that were happening in the neighborhood. And I would just listen, enthralled by their conversation, sometimes telling them about my exploits in the backyard with the dogs, chickens, birds, and pigs.

I had so much fun at my godparents and became so attached to them that Mama became quite alarmed that she was losing my affection. One day, after I had been at my godparents’ house for about a week, out of the clear blue sky, she angrily marched to their house demanding that I return home, saying Give me my baby back. With those words, she snatched me up and took me home. My visits to my godparents became shorter and less frequent. But I still loved them harder than any child could love anyone. I looked forward to seeing them in church every Sunday and cherished and relished being with them whenever I could. Lesson